– A group of Catholics have taken to gathering around a tree in Fresno, California because, according to them, the tree weeps God’s tears. An arborist who examined the tree reached a different conclusion, however, attributing the liquid seeping from the tree to something much more earthly:

The aphides [tree lice] will suck the sap, the sap goes through the aphid and then it is a honey dew excrement from the aphid and it gets so heavy in the summertime that it will drip down.

These tree lice are excreting God’s tears, or something.

– Imagine a cup, or a straw, that could detect the presence of date-rape drugs. A company in Boston, DrinkSavvy, Inc., is apparently working on it. Says the project’s founder:

DrinkSavvy’s ultimate goal is to use the success of this campaign to convince bars, clubs and colleges to make DrinkSavvy the new safety standard and eventually make drug-facilitated sexual assault a crime of the past.

I am both impressed at the idea and the technology, and depressed at the necessity of the idea. ThinkProgress bills it as a way “to combat sexual assault without victim blaming,” but it still seems to put the burden on the victim, e.g. “You got roofied? Why weren’t you using a DrinkSavvy straw?”

– An Austin man was arrested for allegedly firing a gun through his own front window—from the outside—because he thought he heard his wife having sex with someone inside. He claimed he heard his wife “groaning” and heard a man’s voice say that he had a gun, so he started shooting. His wife wasn’t actually at home. The bullet ended up in a neighbor’s bedroom, where two people had been sleeping peacefully. This is sort of what I mean when I talk about my right not to get shot by some other dude with Second Amendment rights.